The Fairy-Maid came and covered him up close and warm with a white blanket that needs no posting, and sang the soft tune a man hears but once, and kissed him on the beard as he slept in the drift--and his name had been Ellar Ban.
Round by the king's good highroad came Solomon the carrier with his cart, and many a time he thought of turning between Carnus and Kilmune. But he was of the stuff of Clan Coll, and his mare was Proud Maisie. He had a boll of meal from Portinsherrich, from the son of a widow woman who was hungry in Inneraora and waiting for that same.
"No Ellar here yet!" he said at Kilmune when he asked, and they told him. "Then there's a story to tell, for if he's not here, he's not at Karnes, and his grave's on the grey mountain."
Later came Luath, the collie of Ellar, slinking through the snow wet and weary, and without wind enough for barking. 'Twas as good as the man's ghost.
The shepherds came in from the fanks, and over from the curling at Carlonan, to go on a search.
Long Duncan of Drimfem, the slim swarthy champion, was there before them. He was a pretty man--the like never tied a shoe in Glenaora--and he was the real one who had Mairi's eye, which the dead fellow thought had the laugh only for him. But, lord! a young man with a good name with the shinty and the _clachneart_ has other things to think of than the whims of women, and Donacha never noticed.
"We'll go up and see about it--about him at once, Main," he said, sick-sorry for the girl. All the rest stood round pitying, because her kists were said to be full of her own spinning for the day that was not to be.
Mairi took him to the other side of the peat-stack, and spoke with a red face.
"Is it any use your going till the snow's off the hill, Drimfem?" she said, biting at the corner of her brattie, and not looking the man in the face.
"_Dhia gleiih sinn!_ it's who knows when the white'll be off the snouts of these hills, and we can't wait till---- I thought it would ease your mind." And Donacha looked at the maid stupid enough. For a woman with her heart on the hill, cold, she was mighty queer on it.
"Yes, yes; but it's dangerous for you to go up, and the showers so heavy yet. It's not twenty finger-lengths you can see in front of you, and you might go into the bog."